Gary Brown: Beware of e-mails offering '70 percent off'

Friday

Apr 25, 2008 at 12:01 AMApr 25, 2008 at 12:48 AM

All the subject line of the e-mail said was "April" and "70 percent off." And the e-mail itself was nothing more than a little red "X" in a black square, which is apparently the international Internet symbol for "look here, cheapskate."

Gary Brown

All the subject line of the e-mail said was "April" and "70 percent off." And the e-mail itself was nothing more than a little red "X" in a black square, which is apparently the international Internet symbol for "look here, cheapskate."

Does a guy really need to know anything more than he's getting a deal to make him click on such a symbol? I'd buy a broken toaster for 70 percent off. Let me pay less than a third of the retail price for something and you don't even need to tell me what it is.

"Send it to me, I'll write you a check ... ."

So I clicked on the "X" and waited for a response.

Male enhancement

You're right. Viagra. Cialis. I was thinking power drills or lawn-care tools. I was ready to buy a new lawn mower. I could almost see myself waving at my neighbors in the summer.

But instead, I saw these pills on the screen. Some online pharmacy from Canada was hawking little blue Viagra pills, little yellow Cialis pills, little orange Levitra pills, and little white Soma pills. This would explain the warning on the initial e-mail.

"To protect your privacy, some pictures in this message were not downloaded."

It protected my health, too. Suddenly show a guy pills like that in the actual e-mail and he's likely to get all red in the face, and not all from embarrassment. "Hey, hey, hey, why am I getting an e-mail like this?" he's likely to ask. "I don't need these things. I'm a man."

And then he could possibly have a heart attack doing push-ups trying to prove it.

Oh, there were ads there for other medications and health aids, as well.

Sleeping pills. Pain-relief medications. Dental-whitening strips. Some of these are sort of related to the male-enhancement drugs. If you have green teeth, you're probably not going to need the Viagra.

But, as you might expect, I really don't want to talk about Viagra.

I just want to know, honestly, are guys that easy to fool?

Yes, probably

Do you just have to show a guy a red "X" and tell him he's getting whatever is behind that "X" at a drastically discounted price to get him to look?

For that matter, why do you have to trick him into reading a Viagra ad? Is the deal more of a come-on at my age than the sex?

Flash "SEX " on some young guy's computer and young guys will come running from houses all over the neighborhood.

But, you sell Viagra to old guys. And old guys want to be able to tell their buddies, "I betcha I got my Viagra cheaper than you got your Viagra ... ." I could have gotten mine at 70 percent off. It would have been a great deal.

The disappointing thing is that when I saw the red "X," I was kind of looking forward to buying the Black & Decker or Briggs & Stratton stuff.